MissBEHAVED

Chapter Two

Dixon

Sundays were for church and family lunch, first, then opening the hardware store my great-grandfather started fifty years ago, and passed down to my grandfather, the current owner. Williams’ Hardware used to be closed on Sunday, but once I took over running the store five years ago, I convinced him that people actually ran errands on Sunday afternoons, so now I opened from one o’clock to six o’clock. Much to his surprise, and chagrin, I always had customers, and more than just a handful. I only gloated a little because he threatened to tan my hide if I didn’t stop.

After sitting through the ten o’clock service pretending to listen to Pastor Lewis’ sermon while mentally running through the inventory I needed to take that afternoon, I escaped out the side door and warmed up the car. My grandparents would chat with their friends and Pastor Lewis for at least twenty minutes, exchanging news and gossip, and sometimes snarky barbs, especially the old ladies. Living in a small town had its perks, and a downside. Sure, Walker’s Grove was safe and very community oriented, but it could also turn nasty and petty. In any dispute between neighbors, people chose sides, which sometimes resulted in decades-long friendships unraveling overnight.

Listening to my grandmother exchange recipes or thinly veiled insults with a bunch of other old ladies wasn’t my cup of tea, though Gramps would shut down any meanness once he heard a word of her behaving poorly. I attended church out of obligation, mostly. As longstanding residents of the town and prominent business owners, my grandparents were well known and involved in the community. And since I would inherit the store, so was I. Not that going to church once a week was too much of burden compared to all that my grandparents had done for me over the years.

My mother had dropped me off on their doorstep when I was four years old and taken off for New York City. Before that, we’d bounced around from Buffalo to Rochester to Jamestown, following whichever man she’d hooked up with who promised her a better life. I never knew my father, and I wasn’t even sure if she knew who he was. I don’t remember much from that period of my life, and what I do, is chaotic and filled with fear. She wasn’t a stable woman and didn’t have the skills to raise a child, so her dropping me off in Walker’s Grove was the best thing she could have done for me, and I never forgot that fact.

She died a few years later, the victim of a brutal assault. I was only seven and had lived with my grandparents almost as long as I’d lived with her. I was sad, but not distraught. Gram and Gramps were upset but shielded me from the brunt of their sorrow. They brought her body home from New York City and buried her in the cemetery behind our church, and life went on. Walker’s Grove gave me a safe and secure childhood, full of summers out in the woods or swimming in someone’s pool or pond, and winters full of sledding and snowboarding on the hills surrounding the area. I graduated from high school with the same people I started kindergarten with, plus or minus a few. After graduation I attended a somewhat local branch of the State University of New York, commuting a half-hour each way from my grandparents’ old Victorian on Main Street to campus. I didn’t see the point of the Bachelor of Business Administration degree I enrolled for, but Gramps insisted upon it, and when the old man put his foot down, you listened.

Now that I had the degree, I appreciated his insistence, but when I was eighteen, the last thing I wanted was to get up at the crack of dawn and drive to college. Lately, I’d even been thinking about going back for my MBA. There was a private college two towns over offering a program for working adults that fit my schedule. I just had to figure out if it was worth the pricey tuition.

After the right amount of time passed, I pulled the car around to the front of the church and parked. Another five minutes went by before my grandparents appeared on the front steps, and I watched as Gramps carefully helped Gram walk to the car. Everything was shoveled and thoroughly salted, but they were both in their seventies and a bad fall would be a disaster for either of them. They made it safely, and Gramps helped Gram into the back seat before joining me up front. Once they were both buckled up, I carefully pulled their Buick out into traffic, avoiding the other parishioners slowly filing out of the church.

“The service was nice today,” Grandma said, beginning the weekly ritual I’d mentally named the Sunday Service Post-Game Show. It usually consisted of Gram saying all the things she wished she could during church while Gramps and I made appropriate responses.

“Not too long,” Gramps agreed, and I chuckled at the easy and familiar routine. I wondered if either of them minded or if it provided comfort.

“Except Louise O’Neil’s perfume was so strong it gave me a headache from three pews away.” No matter what, Gram always found something to complain about, though in this case, I agreed. The cloying scent had permeated our side of the church.

“Maybe you should lie down when we get home,” I suggested, knowing what her answer would be before the words came out of my mouth.

“I couldn’t do that, Dixon. The roast needs to come out of the oven and the potatoes need to boil and then be mashed. I can’t leave the stove unattended to take a nap.” She dismissed my suggestion like I knew she would, but with a bit more attitude than I expected. Not that I cared, but my other passenger certainly would.

“Now, Theresa, the boy was just trying to look out for you. If you feel poorly, he and I can man the stove while you rest, and I think you might need one,” Gramps said with a hint of reprimand that Gram either chose to ignore or missed completely.

“If I left you two in charge, we’d end up with overdone meat and mushy potatoes,” she snapped. “Remember when Dixon burnt the garlic bread when Pastor Lewis and his wife were coming over for dinner? I’d just stepped away to freshen my lipstick and the whole kitchen was filled with smoke when I returned. Imagine what would happen to a roast.”

“Now, Gram, that was over fifteen years ago. Between the two of us, Gramps and I can handle it,” I interjected, trying to get her to calm down. I didn’t know what her problem was today, but the irritation coming from my front-seat passenger increased with every word she said. But Gram was on a tear, and it didn’t matter what I said, there was only one way this was ending.

“We especially can’t ruin the food today with Karen and Jessica coming over,” she huffed.

“What?” I barked. “Why would they be coming over?”

“Why? Because I invited them. Jessica is in town visiting her mother and asked after you.” She tried to pretend like this was no big deal, but we all knew better.

Jessica Newman was a woman I’d briefly dated in high school who left for the city as soon as she could. She had no desire to live in Walker’s Grove or date me. She was just a nice person with manners who said hello to my grandmother and asked how I was doing. I was certain of that.

“Theresa, you better not be trying to matchmake again. Dixon is a grown man and can find his own woman,” Gramps stated, censure clear in his tone.

“Well, he needs all the help he can get from where I’m sitting. And Jessica’s mother wants her to move back to Walker’s Grove in the worst way.” Gram still tried to make it seem like she was in the right, but there was no way I would let that stand.

“Gram, we’ve been over this before. Jessica and I are not compatible. She’s a very nice woman, but she’s got a life and a very successful career as an attorney in Buffalo. She does not want to move back here, no matter what her mother says.” I remained calm as I explained this to her for the hundredth time. Gram and Karen, Jessica’s mother, were friendly and periodically came up with these schemes to try to get us together that neither Jessica nor I appreciated.

“That’s rubbish. She just needs to meet the right man and settle down. Walker’s Grove is the perfect place to raise a family,” she huffed.

“The woman does not want children, Gram. She wants to live in her condo in the city and practice law.” I tried to make my statement as firm as possible without being disrespectful, but it was difficult. She went on a ‘let’s marry Dixon off’ kick every six months or so, and I was tired of it. She meant well but kept pushing all the same women at me, and I was sick of repeating myself. “I will find a woman on my own and it’s not going to be Jessica or anyone else I’ve dated in the past. I need you to please stop trying to find someone for me to date. I’m not worrying about finding someone, and neither should you. I have plenty in my life to keep me busy.”

“But, Dixon—”

“Theresa, enough,” Gramps cut her off, leaving no room for her to argue. He wasn’t a mean or cruel man, but he was firm and didn’t tolerate rudeness or disrespect.

I pulled into the driveway and parked next to the side door of the house my grandparents had lived in for the past forty years. It was over a hundred years old and perfectly maintained, complete with original stained-glass windows and gleaming hardwood floors. Gramps had updated the kitchen and mechanical systems, but otherwise it looked the same as when it was built in 1885.

He unlocked the house door and helped Gram out of the car, then stuck his head back in.

“Why don’t you get changed and hang out at your place for a bit. I have to call Karen Newman to cancel lunch and then have a conversation with your grandmother.”

I hid my wince when I heard those words. See, it was no secret that when you ‘had a conversation’ with Gramps, you were either over his knee or bent over the side of the bed. I hadn’t been on the receiving end of one of his conversations since I’d turned eighteen because he considered me a man at that point, and responsible for making my own mistakes. Every once in a while as I was growing up, he’d tell me to go play at a friend’s house so he could ‘discuss’ things with Grandma. Now that I lived in the carriage house apartment I wasn’t as aware of it as I used to be, but my grandfather never hid that the judicious use of discipline was an option in his home, like many other homes in Walker’s Grove.